007: Unleash the Dragon

This review contains some spoilers.

Here we have one of the most anticipated 3DMM movies ever, 007: Unleash the Dragon. Unfortunately, this was released unfinished, and every time I see this, I keep thinking how good it could have been if it was released properly finished. Just look at the box office. Unleash the Dragon has recently died out picking up 38 points. This is just for an unfinished movie here. Imagine if this movie was complete. I'd say this could give the Knights of Camelot a run for its money to become one of the highest points scorers in the box office. But it wasn't to be.

Unleash the Dragon opens up with a tense boat scene. Like any Bond opener, this has plenty of action, suspense and a jaw-dropping conclusion. Everything in there just seemed to be animated flawlessly. Patrick was used magnificently with the wide range of actions available to animate James Bond extremely effectively. And the atmosphere was very like a Bond movie, just what the director was aiming for, I presume. The only thing I found un-Bond-like was the hand combat at the top of the boat, which was slightly unrealistic in my opinion. But still, you probably won't notice this, as you might have already been sucked up by the brilliance of this opening.

Frogman then skips a couple of scenes to a rather short piece of action. It's basically James Bond making his escape from a hell of a lot of Michael characters, and although it was nowhere near as good as the thrilling opening, it was still a good watch. And then comes the train scene. This was one of the more unpolished scenes, and you can tell from the notes and the lack of music in some places. Despite all this, the animations are yet again superbly done. I just couldn't believe how well the dirt bikes and the explosions were animated, as well as the train and the helicopter. It didn't quite beat the opening, but this section really is awesome.

Finally, we come to the final 'complete' part, which takes place in China. The snow was incredibly well done, and although it did not have as much action, in my opinion this scene was the most Bond-like one, especially with all the stealthy elements and some dialogue. Summing up all these scenes, considering all the animations were done at least a couple of years ago, this movie definitely delivers visually. Apart from this being unfinished, the only other gripe I have with this, although this is only small, is that sometimes the scenes didn't feel like a Bond movie should. I'm more referring to the second scene, but mostly Unleash the Dragon did feel Bond-ish.

As I close this review, it is incredibly hard to score it. This is an unfinished movie, and despite not being complete, I enjoyed watching this thoroughly. But I'll settle on this figure, as it shows that I was entertained a lot, but it just lacked that little something to win over nearly everyone here. And that little something was completion. It's time-consuming and tough, yes, but Unleash the Dragon is a movie with consistently stunning animations and with more than enough action to keep you hooked to the screen. With a full story, and more amazing animations and action scenes which would make you go 'wow', this could easily be one of the most loved movies in 3DMM history.

Score: 83/100